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Ray Bows knows how to do his homework. Since retiring as a Master Sergeant from the U.S. Army in 1983, he has researched military records and written extensively about the Vietnam War.

Camp Frenzell-Jones: Home of the Redcatchers in Vietnam (Bows, 192 pp., $15, paper) is his eighth book. Pia, his wife, began collaborating with him in 2001. In their books the Bows’s pay tribute to people, events, and locales that otherwise might be forgotten. Ray Bows served with the Redcatchers of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam during 1967-68.

The book explains the naming of the main base of the 199th on the northern edge of Long Binh Post in honor of Herbert “Herb” Frenzell and Billy C. Jones, who died on January 21, 1967. The two infantrymen were the 199th’s first combat casualties in the Vietnam War.

The book tells their life stories. We learn that they became friends in the Army despite coming from drastically different backgrounds. Frenzell, an unmarried college dropout, had enlisted; Jones, a blue-collar husband with two children, was drafted. After reaching Vietnam, they developed negative feelings about the war, which are reflected in many letters they sent home. Nevertheless, they conscientiously spent their short in-country lives in the field on search and destroy missions. Both received posthumous Silver Stars for gallantry.

Many restored photographs, along with some taken from 8-mm film footage shot by Frenzell, fill out the book—and the personalities of the men.

PFC Bows, 1953

Like good historians, the authors include a bibliography and index. Their research also provides a 199th Infantry Brigade Order of Battle, which lists lineage, decorations, and awards for the brigade’s battalions and support units.

I recommend going to the authors’ website at www.bowsmilitarybooks.com where you can find book-ordering information. My visit gave me a broader appreciation of the depth to which self-motivated writers dig to prevent the price paid by those who took part in the Vietnam War from being forgotten.